Paddy Comyn

AS THE FACE of DoneDeal Cars and with 25 years’ experience in the industry, Paddy Comyn is ‘the’ car guy to everyone in his life and is now widening out that role to you, The Journal readers. 

In his Car Clinic series, he will answer all your motoring questions and queries. Have one? Send it to with the subject line CAR CLINIC to motoring@thejournal.ie – we will publish all answers on Mondays on The Journal. (Your questions will be anonymised.) Please let Paddy know what your budget is if you’re asking about your next big purchase. 

Here’s this week’s question (a short one, but a good one):

We have a Peugeot 2008. Fully electric. It’s 2024. Love everything about this car. It’s our first electric car. Its mileage at the moment is 22,000km. When is the optimum time for us to change an electric car? Is it a different timetable to a petrol car?

Generally, electric car battery warranties are at around 160,000km, so when you pass that buyers are going to be very wary of buying that car second-hand.

Also when it comes to the value of the car – around 20,000km per year would be normal enough, so your car is still quite low-mileage for a 2024.

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With all that in mind, I would probably think about moving it on before it gets to 50,000km or three years old, and you still have plenty left on your battery warranty.

Paddy Comyn is the head of automotive content and communications with DoneDeal Cars. He has been involved in the Irish motor industry for more than 25 years.